If There Weren't Any Blacks You'd Have to Invent Them

This release brings together both London Weekend Television productions of Johnny Speight's bleakly comic allegorical play whose overarching theme, as with so much of his work, is the unthinking perpetuation of racial and religious prejudice. The monochrome TV production, screened in 1968, includes among its cast members Ronald Radd, Frank Thornton, Leslie Sands, Valerie Leon and Nerys Hughes, while the later adaptation, broadcast in colour in 1974, features superb performances from Leonard Rossiter, Bob Hoskins, Geoffrey Bayldon, Michael Bryant and Richard Beckinsale. The award-winning Speight was no stranger to controversy and remains best known for his 1966 sitcom Till Death Us Do Part, unleashing archetypal raging bigot Alf Garnett upon British viewers (many of whom, to Speight's horror, sympathised with the views espoused by his comic creation). In this brave, frank and unconventional play, Speight takes a similar stance in questioning the entrenched beliefs and stereotyping that can all too easily lead to intolerance. The setting is a cemetery peopled by a collection of recognisable types. The central thread, concerning a young man who is 'accused' by a blind man of being black, opens an examination of race and religion, colour and creed, and death and disease. The play poses an eternally relevant question: is the desire for segregation an inherently human trait?